Abstract
Any discussion about transdisciplinarity presupposes some sort of recognition of the scientific disciplines and some agreement on how they are or should be grouped or classified. This article supplies a demarcation criterion to distinguish science from non- science and discusses the way the sciences should be grouped. The first issue can be summarized by the question: (how) can scientific disciplines be distinguished from non- scientific ones? To answer this question it is necessary to sketch what in philosophy of science is called a “demarcation criterion” to distinguish between scientific and non- scientific activities. Secondly, does it make sense to recognise groups of sciences and which disciplines should be placed in each group? Does it make sense to use categories like social, hard, soft, exact, applied sciences and so forth? To answer these questions it is necessary to assess the plausibility of some of the categories traditionally used to classify the sciences. The purpose of the article is to provide an initial (yet philosophically grounded) orientation in an area in which many academics seem to wander, and sometimes to accept simplistic answers.Keywords: Demarcation criterion, groups of sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, human sciences, groups of sciences, general sciences, special sciences, transdisciplinarity, 9Theory of) modal aspects, multi-modal sciencesDisciplines: Philosophy, Philosophy of science, (Basically, all sciences are interested)
Highlights
A colleague from the same faculty came to my office
This article, 1) supplies a demarcation criterion to distinguish between science and non-science and 2) discusses the way the scientific disciplines should be classified in groups
The questions are many: when can we say with confidence that we are busy with scientific work? How many disciplines can be regarded as scientific? What do they have in common? Is there something unique and different for each “science”? To which broader group of sciences does my field of study belong? Is there an accepted “paradigm” in each science, or do we have different “schools” competing with each other? Do we find competing paradigms in all the sciences or especially in the social and human sciences?
Summary
A colleague from the same faculty came to my office. He was trying to sort out what he considered a rather intriguing puzzle. A few weeks later, another young colleague wrote to the School of Philosophy asking similar questions It was in those circumstances that I realised that issues concerning scientific status, the paradigms, inter-disciplinary dialogue and so forth constitute a big question mark for many academics. This article, 1) supplies a demarcation criterion to distinguish between science and non-science and 2) discusses the way the scientific disciplines should be classified in groups. A historical survey will be presented to evaluate several demarcation criteria proposed in philosophy of science to answer these questions.
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